"...made a low-gravity leap towards his opponent, whipped about, and slapped with his tail."
-Poul Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (New York, 2012), p. 292.
- like one of ERB's Barsoomian plant men.
A quadrupedal Donarrian:
carries on his back a nuclear howitzer with the man who will fire it;
hurls, tosses, kicks and stamps Merseians.
Two Gorzuni, standing shoulder to shoulder, fire blasters held in each of their four hands, thus penetrating any metal armor. An inhumanly quick Scothanian wields a wrecking bar. Human beings use blasters, slug guns, grenades and karate. Flandry captures the Chereionite because he is from a larger planet and therefore has stronger muscles.
This is not just another fight scene but one that takes account of the different physical characteristics of all the participants.(See also here.)
1 comment:
Hi, Paul!
Still reading WE CLAIM THESE STARS. I agree, the different ways different races will engage in combat due to their physical variations is carefully shown here by Poul Anderson. I don't think all writers, even SF writers, would have shown as much care and thought as shown here by Anderson in a combat scene.
Glory to the Emperor! Sean
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